Parts of this story are true, although they are not necessarily my truth, and parts of it are not. I'll leave the reader to figure out which is which. There is no sex and no revenge in this story. Some readers will complain that the husband is too weak, but when a marriage dies it's sometimes enough just to walk away and start again. Consider this an exercise in sarcasm. Anyway, it is what it is, and I hope that some of you can enjoy it.
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Here we are again, sitting in the waiting room outside the office of the marriage therapist that my wife chose for us. We meet with her once every week, and this is our twelfth visit. The therapist doesn't know it yet, but it's also our final visit. I've arranged a surprise for both my wife and our therapist, and in the future they can get together without me to figure out where they went wrong. My wife can pay.
You hear stories about therapists like this one, but I never imagined I'd be enduring one. I call her The Quack. She's a man-hating bitch and it's no more complicated than that. She lives to validate women and their bad behavior. The wife chose her over my objections. Big surprise there! We could have chosen a legitimate therapist together, interviewed them, developed a mutual trust in who we chose, and moved forward to do the difficult work together; but that's not what happened. Ruth needed the deck stacked so she could control the meetings. It's not that I object to therapy; I just don't think that this is therapy. Every complaint that my wife makes comes back to me with, "David, what you need to understand is that you haven't been providing your wife..." Well, at least that ends today.
I suppose a little review of what brought us to this point is warranted. We got married right out of college twenty-five years ago. We have two kids, a boy and a girl, and both are in college. They're great kids, but don't ask me how. I tried to be the best father I could be, but my wife was missing in action so much that my own kids would jokingly call me Dom (as in Daddy Mom) as I tried to fill the void. The first time they did that I bristled, but I quickly realized that they saw I was both mother and father to them. I was fixing their school lunches, helping them with their homework, taking them to little league and soccer games, meeting with their teachers, and, hell, I fixed dinner more often than not and did the dishes, too. My wife's contribution seemed to be limited to complaining about how important her low-paying job was, complaining about me, and being too tired to do much of anything. That's not entirely fair; she did contribute, but as the years went by, she seemed less engaged with her family and more concerned with life outside the home. Complaining about her job gave way to more complaining about me. I never did enough, or I didn't do it right, or we didn't have enough money, or we didn't take the best vacations, or whatever else her dissatisfaction drove her to focus on. The kids saw it and as they grew older, I got a lot of "Dad, you're the best!" That made it all worthwhile.
You know the old story about "How do you boil a frog?" I was that frog. Well, this frog had finally had enough, and I was jumping out of the pot.
I've spent most of my adult life trying to understand what's wrong with my wife. She grew up in a dysfunctional home. It was the sort of thing you'd read about in horror stories if horror stories were about parents that haunt their kids. Her mother was a serial adulteress who used her daughter to cover up her cheating. As a child, she was taught never to tell her father what really went on during those shopping trips. Her father wasn't stupid, but he was weak, and as you might imagine he was a broken man. He was the mouse that roared. So painfully shy that he was barely able to carry on a conversation, he would stop off for a drink after work and then raise hell when he got home. The home became a battleground with no real communication, no sharing, and no joy. As a child, my wife would see the approaching night, gather a few things to eat, and stay in her bedroom to avoid the warfare in the rest of the house. Is there any wonder she turned out the way she did? Deception and manipulation were her stock and trade, and it took me decades to realize that she was profoundly broken and could never truly live within a marriage. That understanding soothed the pain while the love for my kids kept me there until they were grown.
I did sit with a therapist of my own for a time. I explained the pattern that I saw, told her about Ruth's childhood, and kept asking what I could do to fix the slow decay of my marriage. She patiently explained to me that she could only help the person in front of her and that was me. She taught me to take care of myself, stand up for myself, and not be dragged down into the pit of an empty life that was becoming Ruth's existence. I learned to focus on my kids, live for them, and keep the door open in case Ruth ever decided to walk through and rejoin the family.
Now that the kids were in college, I knew the end was near. I couldn't go on this way, and I was fairly sure that Ruth would blow up the marriage soon enough. You see, my own therapist had explained to me that when a child grows up in chaos, they adjust to it. I know it sounds nuts, but she said that whenever life was good Ruth would blow things up because chaos is what she was most comfortable with. It was a revelation. I thought, "I'm not crazy after all!" I'd seen the pattern, but I didn't believe it. Now, with the kids off to college, our finances under control, the house nearly paid off, and the two of us with enough free time to enjoy our time together, she was destined to blow it up.
My thoughts were interrupted by the door to the inner office opening and another couple walking into the waiting room. The husband was looking weepy, and the wife was looking smug. The Quack earned her pay in that session.
I knew the drill by then. We'd wait for The Quack to write her notes on the last session and then the door would open. "Ruth, I'm ready to see you and David now." That was her way of saying, "I've cleaned up the blood, so bring in the next victim!"
Ruth settled on the couch and The Quack always expected me to sit next to her, but this time I chose the chair to Ruth's right with my back to the door. "David, please sit with your wife."
"I'm sorry, but I can see her better from here. Besides, my back is bothering me, and that sofa has never been comfortable for me." Boy, was that an understatement!
The Quack looks annoyed and says, "David, is there anything you want to say following our last meeting?"
"Yes, I would. We keep coming here, supposedly working on our marriage, but I still can't help but think that my wife is cheating on me. I can't move past it and nothing that's been said here changes my mind."
The Quack doesn't even wait for my wife to speak. "David, I've told you before that I am absolutely certain that Ruth is not cheating on you. She and I have talked, and I am convinced that it is all in your mind. You need to drop this and move on."
She doesn't even wait for my response. "Ruth, what do you want to talk about today?" She wasn't subtle with her bias, was she?
Ruth looked down the mental list of my shortcomings and decided on "He doesn't support me!" That's all it took, and she was off to the races. "He complains when I work late and I just want to go out with my friends occasionally to unwind... [and blah, blah, blah]." Ruth was complaining and The Quack was nodding her head. It was just like every other session.
I knew that Ruth would go on for a while, so I allowed my mind to wander. Early in our therapy, in one of our one-on-one sessions and before I understood that our therapist had an agenda, I told her that I thought my wife had been unfaithful in the past. I had no proof, and it was just a feeling. The Quack shut me down, denied the very idea of it, and told me it was all in my head. Two months later my doubts turned to certainty and her opinion went out the window as I prepared for war. It took some time to prepare, but...
"David? David! Are you listening?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I heard. I don't support her."
"Ruth said you're ignoring her and her needs. You're not supportive when she needs to work late and you're jealous when she wants a few hours with her friends."
"Well, I keep coming back to that feeling I have that she isn't faithful to the marriage."
The Quack couldn't even hide her contempt now. "David, suck it up and be a man. I told you, she isn't cheating on you. Your wife needs a man who can step up and take care of things, but if you keep behaving this way, perhaps she should find someone!" The Quack just wagged her head in disgust.
"Ruth, you were saying..."
"He isn't taking care of the house like he used to. He doesn't cut the lawn when he should, the house needs a new coat of paint... [and blah, blah, blah]."
